I was responsible for lighting all but one of the levels in The Cave (Lydia Choy lit the Final level). The lighting system was essentially the same as Brutal Legend.
Each lighting scheme was controlled by a “climate volume”, and each climate has:
– one main directional shadow-casting light (the sun)
– an ambient ramp skylight
– a fog system with density/fade/single-color controls
– various image processing parameters like saturation/contrast
– the ability to cross fade into other climate zones
The climate zones combined with many placed dynamic point lights create most of our lighting/atmosphere in the game.
Here are some with / without lighting comparison shots.